The growing popularity of pre-mixed stuffing mixes and other similar products has created a demand for large quantities of bread crumbs. By "bread crumbs" is meant: The bread crumbs used in such products must be substantially uniform in size to produce an acceptable product because consistent volumes of crumbs must be incorporated into each mix. Past crumbs had to be screened to separate random sizes of crumbs. Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for making large quantities of bread crumbs of substantially uniform size. Ideally, these bread crumbs are produced from ordinary bread loaves thereby eliminating the need for extrusion apparatus or special baking apparatus for making special loaves suitable for making the crumbs.
Bread crumbs can be made by slicing the bread and then dicing the bread slices. Many types of bread slicers are available, but bread is normally sliced on band-saw slicers. Band-saw slicers use one or more blades that are placed in a set of guides that determine the width of each slice. Band-saw slicers can slice at rates of 100-2000 loaves per hour depending upon the manufacturer, model and application. These band-saw slicers slice the entire loaf at a time. This type of slicer is limited to slice thicknesses of 5/16" or greater.
Dicing machines are available from various manufacturers in designs including continuous rotary cutting blades and reciprocating cutting blades. Either kind may be used to dice sliced bread. The dicer is only capable of handling a single slice at a time.
Conventional band-saw slicers would not be particularly useful (for several reasons). The dicer handles a single slice at a time. The slices produced by a band-saw slicer would have to be separted by mechanical means such as walking beam conveyors or belt conveyors. This additional apparatus for sorting the slices is costly. Also, several dicers would be needed to keep the process running smoothly and avoid a pileup of slices between the slicer and dicer. Another problem with the band-saw slicer is that it is generally incapable of slicing sufficiently thinly, such as 1/4" slices which are the most desirable size for bread crumbs.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an economical method and apparatus for continuously producing large quantities of homogeneous bread crumbs. It is a further object of the invention to provide such method and apparatus while avoiding the problems described above in connection with the use of a band-saw slicer.
These and other objects of the present invention will be apparent from the summary and detailed description which follow.